


Like Planning a Siege

by Birdpeople (DeusExMachina)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Also Les Amis have powers, Also vague references to that unnamed person's abuse, For Grantaire of course, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, M/M, May add more characters and relationships later??, Not like superpowers but the kind of powers where it's part of life such that it's a social issue, There's a brief mention of an unnamed character death but it's no one important, implied alcohol abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeusExMachina/pseuds/Birdpeople
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s how it worked, these days. Grantaire knew he was a coward in many ways, but most of all for how he resisted the dreams. Before he had started drinking to suppress them, he had woken often and often tangled in his blanket, sweating and shivering with visions of near-apocalyptic misfortune pressed against the backs of his eyelids, making him edgy and irritable all day.</p><p>So he drank. And forgot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gift of Not Caring

Grantaire was first introduced to Les ABC on a fine spring morning, the sun high and remote in the achingly blue sky. He was slumped over a coffee, nursing a hangover. The way his situation differed on this morning from most others was that he had ordered the coffee from an actual café, getting there just as it opened, the other chairs still up on the tables around him.

 

Now, Grantaire wasn’t one for early rising, or early anything, really, but something had compelled him to step out on that morning; a half-remembered dream, a whirl of pleasantry and an impression of blue, blue sky with scudding clouds and sunlight burning his closed eyelids crimson.

 

That’s how it worked, these days. Grantaire knew he was a coward in many ways, but most of all for how he resisted the dreams. Before he had started drinking to suppress them, he had woken often and often tangled in his blanket, sweating and shivering with visions of near-apocalyptic misfortune pressed against the backs of his eyelids, making him edgy and irritable all day.

 

The prophetic dreams meant less than nothing most of the time, each one being only one possible outcome in a myriad of possibilities. Sometimes he hadn’t even been in his own dreams, had spent many fruitless hours at a time trying to track down those in his dreams and warn them- of what? He didn’t know for certain if what he saw would ever come to pass, and the frenzied images never showed him the same people twice.

 

So he drank. And forgot.

 

These days he didn’t try to find other abnormals, although he could still mostly recognize another when he saw one. Some of the time. When he bothered to look.

 

These fragments of dreams were all he had left, the only things that leaked through his self-medicated haze of self-loathing, and so he found himself superstitiously taking coffee on that morning in an empty café because something had told him it would be nice.

 

It didn’t take long for the barista who had served him to sit down across from where Grantaire slumped, regretting already his decision to sit where the sun struck his face, effectively blinding him.

 

The young man introduced himself as Jehan, and that had Grantaire opening his eyes to take a look. The kid was smiling at him.

 

Grantaire asked if Jehan should really be sitting with him. Didn’t he have to open the café?

 

“I got here early,” Jehan said, still beaming.

 

That one took Grantaire a minute to untangle. “So,” he said slowly, “I should probably go, huh. I doubt you’re supposed to let people in early.” He tried to slide out of the booth, but Jehan caught hold of his wrist impatiently.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jehan said, “I got here early because I wanted to meet _you_.”

 

Grantaire took a careful look around before his eyes settled on Jehan, his blazing red hair, his freckly, unfazed expression. He was still holding Grantaire’s wrist.

 

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you before,” Grantaire muttered, although he was still racking his brains on that one, as Jehan seemed awfully familiar, somehow. “I’ve definitely never been inside this place before.” He needed a drink. How pathetic was that, this early in the morning? One sign of things getting a little strange and he needed to not be there to feel it immediately.

 

“I saw _you_ , last night,” Jehan said, his smile seeming to waver under the strain. “I _know_ you’re one of us.”

 

Grantaire’s insides squirmed with embarrassment. “I don’t remember,” he said, shamefaced. But the second thing Jehan had said had struck a very uncomfortable chord in him. He studied Jehan carefully, the blaze of sunlight picking out amber highlights in his hair and splashing across the high-backed wooden benches of the booth, the steam from Grantaire’s nearly-untouched coffee adding to the unreality of the scene. This seemed highly familiar to him.

 

Grantaire scrubbed a hand across his face, groaning faintly before sitting up straight and gulping defiantly at his steaming coffee, regretting it as he felt his throat blister. “You’re like me,” he gasped, finally.

 

“You’re out of practice,” Jehan teased, and it took Grantaire one slow, addled moment to realize he was flirting.

 

“Guess so,” Grantaire muttered. He wanted no part of this. “How did you suss me, prophetic dream?”

 

“Yes,” Jehan said, nodding, eyebrows raised, wholly amused. “Just like you.”

 

“How do you -”

 

“I can just tell.”

 

“What do you want with me?” Grantaire asked abruptly. “I’m not in touch with any other abnormals.”

 

“That’s alright,” Jehan said, fumbling in his apron for, of all things, a flyer. He pushed it across the table at Grantaire, who stared down at it distrustfully.

 

“What is this, a rally?”

 

Jehan grinned, “Not exactly. That comes later. This is just a little gathering.” The flyer was hand-lettered, meant to be given only as a personal invitation, although the flyer itself proclaimed that all were welcome. It instructed Grantaire to return to this café after closing time, at eight pm sharp. He wondered if he would.

 

Jehan was looking regretfully at the clock and starting to stand, saying something about getting ready to really open the café when Grantaire interrupted him.

 

“At this- meeting,” Grantaire said carefully, “There’ll be more people like us?” Grantaire had spent years avoiding people like him.

 

Jehan tipped his hand from one side to the other. “Some yes, some no. No other strict clairvoyants, I think.”

 

“And how do you deal with-” Grantaire swallowed the end of the question, embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to ask, but he’d always wondered if other people like him got by without drinking themselves to sleep.

 

Jehan regarded him levelly. “I haven’t slept in the same room as anyone since I used to crawl into bed with my parents.”

 

Right.

 

\---

 

Grantaire showed up promptly at seven thirty, showing himself upstairs and sitting slumped at a table in the back of the room, palms sweating, knee bouncing under the table.

 

There was only one other person there, a man who shot Grantaire a cursory look before going back to reviewing notes of some kind. A university student? He certainly looked like he could have been. Grantaire’s age, then, or there-abouts. Gorgeous, too, in a Greek god, worship-him-from-afar way, with spills of gold hair and a sharp, austere face, clothed in gules.

 

Grantaire fished a crumpled sketchpad out of his bag, spreading it before him. The last thing he had drawn in here was from months ago.

 

He sketched aimlessly to pass the time, doodling monsters until he filled the page, before starting a new one, this time with Jehan as his subject.

 

He barely looked up as the young man approached. “Those are very life-like,” he said, sounding impressed. “And you don’t even need a model.”

 

Grantaire looked up at the man, ready to tell him that it was nothing, just throwaway sketches, but his breath caught in his throat. “You can model for me any time,” he said, pleased that the words didn’t come out nearly as choked as they could have.

 

The stranger sent him an amused and thoroughly condescending look. _As if I have nothing better to do,_ that look said. “Enjolras,” the man introduced himself.

 

“Grantaire. Jehan invited me.”

 

“You’re not the first.”

 

“So,” Grantaire said casually, wanting to keep talking to this vision in red and gold, “Is everyone who’s coming like us? Special?”

 

Enjolras’ eyes glittered. “I don’t consider people with abnormal abilities any more ‘special’ than anyone else,” he said, a hint a warning in his voice.

 

Grantaire rolled his eyes. God, this guy was a bundle of laughs. “Right, I forgot, everyone’s special, _we_ just have to hide it.”

 

“Abnormals are not, by any means, the only minority oppressed because their number makes it easy to do so,” Enjolras snapped.

 

“You talk as if you’re not one.”

 

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. “Who says I am?”

 

“No one,” Grantaire said comfortably, “You’ve just got the look.”

 

“You know what they say about assumptions.”

 

Grantaire hummed. He really didn’t have a comeback for that one. And he absolutely would have sworn that Enjolras was an ‘abby, no matter what he said. Maybe he was just uncomfortable talking about it. Maybe, even worse, he didn’t know what he could do. Grantaire had heard what happened to people who didn’t find out they were abnormal until late in their lives. It left them bitter and wrong-footed, unable to cope with what they were able to do and unable to hide it.

 

Not that everyone hid their powers. They weren’t illegal per se, it was just looked at as extremely taboo to casually bring up that one time you nearly burned your friend’s house down lighting a bonfire in the back yard without matches.

 

Enjolras had prowled back to the front of the room to peruse his notes once more, leaving Grantaire to begin on another page of his sketchbook, this one quickly filling with lines denoting a regal posture and sharp blue eyes rendered in black and white. Grantaire kept sneaking looks. He didn’t need a model, but he felt that if he didn’t keep looking, his drawings would become sentimental, affected by the way thoughts of Enjolras already conjured words such as _volatile_ and _austere_ , which he doubted his would ever be able to marry in the form of a single portrait. Words like _radiant_ and _classically beautiful_ he chose to ignore.

 

He had known Enjolras less than half an hour. This was patently ridiculous.

 

He turned the page viciously, going back to drawing Jehan. It was easier.

 

He heard the floorboards by his table creak and, after a moment, looked up. A man was leaning over him eagerly, vibrating with energy. “Are you drawing Jehan?” he asked loudly. Grantaire was secretly glad the man couldn’t see the frowning profiles he had done of Enjolras, or his voice would have fetched the other man over here.

 

“Er, yes,” he said, holding out a hand, which was immediately seized and rather painfully wrung. “I’m Grantaire.”

 

“Courfeyrac,” the man said cheerfully. “You’re amazing at drawing, has anyone told you recently?” Grantaire shifted uncomfortably. “You should draw me some time.” Ah, familiar territory.

 

“Love to,” he said easily, privately thinking that nothing short of divine intervention would make Courfeyrac sit still long enough to be sketched. Courfeyrac clapped a hand on his shoulder, beaming, before darting off. Grantaire’s phone gave a worried beep from his pocket and he pulled it out, discovering that the battery had nearly run low. _Funny, I could have sworn I charged it last night_.

 

In no time, people began arriving in twos and threes, nearly all of them coming over to welcome Grantaire. He slid his sketchbook onto his lap under the table when a fifth person, one by the name of Joly this time, told him he was talented. There was only so much his withered ego could handle, and he certainly hadn’t drawn it for the praise.

 

Meanwhile, he was getting the strong impression that, while not everyone here was abnormal, for once in his life he was sitting in a room where they outnumbered those who had no unusual talents.

 

Jehan slipped in late, smiling at Grantaire and seating himself at the back with him. Grantaire surreptitiously slid his sketchpad from his lap to his bag.

 

Jehan explained in a whisper that he had a long-standing arrangement with his managers that he could close early on Wednesdays to attend these meetings.

 

Grantaire nodded vaguely. “Tell me, Jehan,” he said absently, eyes seeking where Enjolras was conversing animatedly with a bespectacled man, “What does Enjolras do?”

 

Jehan grinned. “Do you have an hour or two to spare?”

 

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “I meant in regards to special talents and the like.”

 

“See previous comment.” Grantaire poked Jehan hard in the side. It was strange. He had never got along with anyone so quickly in his life.

 

“You _know_ what I mean!” He hissed over the hubbub.

 

Jehan spread his hands expressively. “If you mean ‘abby stuff, I’m afraid I have no idea. None of us do. Well, Combeferre probably knows, and maybe Courfeyrac, but he’s very hush-hush about it, very private.”

 

“Funny, he didn’t seem like the retiring sort,” Grantaire murmured.

 

“Well you’re right, he’s not,” Jehan said with a laugh. “But it would take a long time and a certain amount of prying to really explain him. He’s our leader, and leave it at that.”

 

By that point the noise had begun to die down as people took their seats, facing Enjolras expectantly as he remained standing. Grantaire wasn’t sure what he had expected, but his initial reaction on seeing the flyer had been closer to the mark than Jehan had indicated. It _was_ rather like a rally. But extremely well regulated and just a little like what Grantaire imagined planning a siege would be like.

 

He had intended to let his attention wander freely, perhaps to study those sitting around him, but his attention was caught. He found himself examining closely Enjolras’ every move, every word. He soon knew the prowling way the man paced rather well. He found himself wishing that Enjolras would spare a heady blue glance for the back of the room, but he never did. He found himself too wishing he understood the dry humor used sparsely and amplified by the muttered comments of the bespectacled man and the antics of Courfeyrac who sat restlessly beside him, bouncing one knee. The tiny ripples of laughter made Grantaire wish that he had not chosen to distance himself from people over the years.

 

As the meeting drew on, Grantaire found himself utterly engaged, frowning and whispering to Jehan if he disagreed with something or had some dry comment of his own to make. Jehan just hummed in response, attention as rapt as any there.

 

 _Just schoolboys_ Grantaire caught himself thinking more than once. Not that he could have been much older than some of them, and may in fact have been younger than others, but there was an innocent enthusiasm here than differed so starkly from anything Grantaire could remember ever experiencing than he couldn’t help feeling tired and rather older than them. He didn’t know how long he could take it.

 

Finally, Grantaire raised his hand. Others had spoken without doing so over the course of the meeting, but he had a sense that the slightly mocking formality of the gesture might annoy their fearless leader. He didn’t wait for Enjolras’ curt nod to speak.

 

“There is a flaw in your flawless argumentation.”

 

Enjolras’ eyes narrowed. Grantaire was aware of Jehan regarding him somewhat worriedly. “And I take it you’d care to enlighten us?”

 

Grantaire tilted his chair back on two legs, smiling pleasantly in the face of Enjolras’ cool unfriendliness. “You spoke most eloquently of the desires of the people,” he said lightly. “A quantity which, while difficult to define, can be and has been empirically and statistically measured. What is impossible to define, but which you valiantly strive to do, is the desire of the individual.”

 

“Explain.” Enjolras wasn’t angry, not yet. But his attention was a laser-like focus that made Grantaire quite lightheaded. He would certainly remember to refill his flask before coming to the next meeting.

 

“Put it this way. Sitting in a classroom, you cannot predict a teacher’s outburst or chastisement of a student. But you can most assuredly predict that not a single one of that student’s classmates will speak up to defend him.”

 

“I’m not sure I follow,” Enjolras said, a mocking smile on his lips and cold blue fire in his eyes. “It is simply a matter of behavior and of reading people to predict if a teacher is in the mood to inflict punishment.”

 

“ _A_ teacher, yes. An adult you have known for some time already,” Grantaire said charitably. “ _This_ teacher, _any_ teacher at all, however, regardless of who they are- the ineffable teacher, if you will- is impossible to predict.”

 

“If an individual is impossible to predict,” Enjolras snapped, “How is it not possible that another student will speak up in defense of the wronged?”

 

 _I bet you did that many times yourself_. _I bet you were never one to stay silent in the face of oppression._ “Of course it is possible,” Grantaire said calmly, enjoying the look of frustration on Enjolras’ face. “But it would take enormous lack of self-awareness to do so. Humans mirror the actions of those around them. They don’t like being singled out. They fear being rejected. If twenty children bow their heads, you can bet the twenty-first will, too.”

 

“It is,” Grantaire continued, still leaning back comfortably in his chair, “What makes your message utterly unmarketable.”

 

“Oh?” Enjolras grits out.

 

Grantaire nods earnestly, holding back an incredulous smile. He can’t believe it. He’s actually _winning_.

 

“You call upon the individual to shed that which has been impressed on them every day of their lives; their sense of balance with the rest of human society.”

 

“I call upon the individual to do the right thing, as is their responsibility,” Enjolras snaps.

 

“And in doing so, to defy tradition,” Grantaire agrees.

 

“I am not the first to suggest defying tradition,” Enjolras sneered. “And see how far we have come.”

 

“Oh?” Grantaire said, turning his head to look around mockingly. “How far exactly do you think we’ve come?”

 

“Slavery-”

 

“Still exists,” Grantaire hissed, letting his chair fall onto all four legs with a bang. “It goes under different names these days, but it is still perfectly legal. The divide between poverty and wealth has not been mended by the middle class. Death by discrimination is still so commonplace that newspapers don’t report it. We live in an age with such a prolific spread of information that you can be well-read on any current event you can name but still be ignorant as a sin as to what’s really going on. War, genocide; the only things that have changed in the course of human history is that hate has become subtler and it has become easier to turn a blind eye.”

 

Beside him, Jehan scrawled something on a scrap of paper.

 

Enjolras looked as if he were struggling for words. When he next spoke, his voice was quiet, but not steady. “Things are just as you say. So my question is, if you recognize how dire the status quo is, how do you not see my brand of uprising as appealing to the people?”

 

Grantaire laughed; he couldn’t help it. “It goes back to what I said. To the individual, your message is incredibly uplifting. It promises freedom and hope and brotherhood and every other thing tyrants have always promised in the times before they were tyrants.” He saw Enjolras stiffen with rage, and quickly went on. “But it’s not comforting. It promises unfamiliarity, something the masses historically disapprove of.” Grantaire shrugged. “In my humble opinion, your message is also fairly inaccessible to the people you profess to fight for. Not everyone goes to university and brushes up on their legalese in their spare time.”

 

“What’s your point?” Enjolras asked raggedly, and Grantaire felt a stab of pity. “That we’re wrong to want change?”

 

Grantaire looked at him measuredly. Enjolras’ jaw was set and his eyes were hard. He had clearly gone up against opposition before. Nothing Grantaire had to say had swayed him one bit, he realized with a jolt. Next meeting there would be no mention of this conversation and Enjolras’ brand of uprising would continue to flourish.

 

“Of course you’re not wrong to want change,” Grantaire said, careful for the first time. “But you are naïve if you expect it. Humanity has an awful lot of momentum. It would take more effort than you or anyone could ever muster to change things.”

 

“At least I haven’t given up like you,” Enjolras snapped.

 

Grantaire smiled gently. “I used to wake up screaming loudest not at the visions of the end of the world, but at the visions of ordinary people destroying themselves and each other.” The people assembled, who had fallen silent during their debate, muttered uneasily. Even here, Grantaire talking about his nightmares made them uncomfortable.

 

“I used to try to track them down. One time, completely by accident, I succeeded. I had seen this woman one night in my dream. She was beaten bloody by her husband, she was pleading with him, and when he finally left her to put herself back together for him to destroy the next night, she dragged on her best dress, stepped along to the nearest bridge, and threw herself off.” Grantaire’s voice was tender. He had never said any of this aloud before.

 

“I found her on the streets of the city, going about her errands. I recognized her, although it had been months since the dream. She looked… wrong. The way she bore herself, she was clearly in pain, but not a single person around asked if she was alright. I did what I could. I asked for her name, her husband’s name, so I could tell the police. She refused, even when she realized that I was in earnest. I gave her my phone number, begging her to call me if she ever felt like she had reached the end of the line.”

 

Grantaire felt a touch. He looked down to see Jehan holding his wrist tightly. It hurt. “Did she ever call you?” Jehan whispered, tears in his eyes.

 

Suddenly Grantaire felt awful. Of course this story would upset Jehan. Jehan, who hadn’t slept in the same room as someone since he used to crawl into his parents’ bed at night.

 

Grantaire nodded heavily. “She called me once. To say thank you.” When he had arrived at the bridge from his dream, he had found her shoes and her phone laid neatly by the side. He had called the police, but not a single motorist who must have been witness to the woman’s suicide stayed to do their civic duty.

 

“I called the police when I found her shoes on the bridge. I told them her husband had beaten her nightly, but was unable to tell them who she was or how I knew her. They don’t treat prophetic dreams as real evidence.” The bitterness in his voice surprised him. So much for cynicism.

 

He looked up, to find every eye in the room on him. He sought out Enjolras’ gaze, looking for he didn’t know what. Understanding? Acceptance?

 

“Don’t you see,” Enjolras said quietly. “This is why we fight.”

 

“No,” Grantaire said abruptly. “This is why fighting makes no difference.” But the words fell oddly from his lips. Yes, he was aware he had won this round with this leader in red and gold, but he had a feeling there would be other rounds, that winning would be tougher in the future. He doubted anyone could wear down his hard-won cynicism, but he knew that Enjolras wasn’t about to stop trying. He wondered why he cared. He wondered why the idea filled him with anticipation, why the idea of those blue eyes snapping fire at him sent a chill down his spine that he would come to crave, would slink back to this place to attended meeting after meeting whether he was really welcome or not.

 

He looked down as Jehan pushed something toward him, something he had scrawled earlier.

 

_A deaf ear here, a blind eye there,  
Eventually someone will notice and care. _

 

Grantaire caught Jehan’s eyes, still teary, and nodded. The boy smiled tremulously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the product of reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and then dreaming about the Globe Theater and Sherlock Holmes and a plot to kill the duke who was an uncle of the plotter who worked as a detective? Also stuff about Enjolras and R having powers. 
> 
> Anyway, none of that stuff really matters to this story except the last part. You'll find out who can do what in due course. 
> 
> Also there's a lot of really small hints about that so if you read carefully you may pick up on that stuff. 
> 
> In any case, I'll try to finish the next chapter soon. Say hi to me on tumblr! (quasi-birdpeople.tumblr.com)


	2. The Gift of Not Sleeping

“So, Grantaire,” Bahorel said boomingly over the conversations of their table-mates. “What do you think of Enjolras?” The other conversations around them dissolved into snickers.

 

Grantaire grinned expansively, feeling the warmth of the alcohol thrumming through his veins. He had agreed to take a drink with what turned out to be most of Le ABC in a nearby bar since the end of the meeting.

 

He clutched his heart theatrically. “He’s certainly a vision,” he sighed.

 

Courfeyrac laughed, “And what vision would that be?”

Grantaire tilted his head thoughtfully. “A golden god. Apollo in his chariot of the sun, of course.”

 

For some reason this sent Bossuet into a peal of laughter. Between bouts he gasped, “ _Chariot!_ ”

 

Joly, who had only just managed to rescue Bossuet’s drink from being upset, frowned severely. “If you mean that death trap-”

 

And now the rest of them were laughing, too.

 

Grantaire must have looked his bemusement, because Joly took it upon himself to elaborate. “Enjolras says it’s senseless to have a car in the city.”

 

“He’s not wrong,” Grantaire agreed amicably.

 

“So as an alternative,” Joly continued, “He favors his decrepit bike for means of transportation.” He shook his head. “It’s a total disgrace.”

 

“Peeling paint where it’s not rusted through,” Courfeyrac cut in cheerfully. “It’s such a piece of crap he could have practically got it for free when it was new. As it is, the chain falls off at least once a week, but he’ll never let us buy him a new one no matter how strongly Joly disapproves.”

 

“Alright, so not quite as dignified as his bearing, but no matter,” Grantaire said.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Jehan cut in impatiently, “But you went toe-to-toe with him today. Don’t pretend that doesn’t color your opinion somewhat.”

 

The easy smile on Grataire’s face took on a fixed quality. His heart banged uncomfortably. “So he’s an idealist. I was an idealist once.”

 

“And?”

 

Grantaire shrugged. “He argues well. And he’s passionate. You didn’t hear it from a cynic like me, but applied correctly, those things could get him far. Because he’s right. Things suck the way they are. Lots of people would be willing to listen.”

 

He scrubbed at his face with one hand. “But asking people to take action, well. That’s presumptuous. People won’t fight for themselves because of what they stand to lose.”

 

Courfeyrac shivered. “New rule, everyone.” The assembled friends groaned as one man.

 

“What is it, Courf?”

 

“No defeatism over drinks. I happen to know at least a couple of you make maudlin drunks. Jehan.”

 

Jehan raised his beer in sarcastic acknowledgement.

 

Grantaire smiled ruefully. “In my defense, you did ask.”

 

“Ah-ah!” Courfeyrac said. “Upbeat topics only. Now, go on about what a golden vision Enjolras is.”

 

\---

 

It was only later that night, when Grantaire was elaborating on his hobbies to a mild but interested Combeferre, that it came out about the boxing. Bahorel pounced on the topic, leaning forward eagerly.

 

“You box? What gym?”

 

Grantaire told him, and Bahorel snapped his fingers. “ _Knew_ you looked familiar the moment I saw you at the meeting! I use a different gym these days, but I remember you. Never had the pleasure myself, but I watched you take apart men twice your size.”

 

Grantaire laughed self-deprecatingly. “Surely not twice my size. I’d never stack the odds against myself like that.”

 

But Bahorel wasn’t listening. “You should have seen him,” he was saying to Combeferre. “It was like watching a performance.”

 

“Well I have been said to have a flair for dramatics,” Grantaire said with a grin. “But what you’re thinking of probably comes from the dancing my mom made me take as a kid.”

 

“Could be, could be,” Bahorel agreed. He cracked his knuckles, grinning sinisterly. “You’ll have to face me sometime.”

 

“Now _that_ seems a little unfair-” he began to protest, but

 

“Ah- _ah_ , no defeatism, remember!” came Courfeyrac’s trill, and Grantaire gave in and assented.

 

Two weeks later in the ring of Bahorel’s preferred gym, Grantaire would grimly receive his fair and rightful thrashing with good grace.

 

\---

 

Grantaire lay there on his side, face pressed into the unfamiliar fibers of Jehan’s couch cushion.

 

He had drunk too much. He hadn’t drunk enough. His head was spinning. His throat hurt.

 

His heart hurt.

 

It felt like something was wrong with him. He just kept remembering burning blue eyes and a ragged voice and thinking, _I did that, I did that_ , like a mantra.

 

He fell asleep.

 

When he woke up, he remembered only this from his dream: A blaze of sunlight from an open window, not eclipsed by the man standing in front of it, somehow transformed, burning purer and redder and more fiercely.

 

And he remembered the feeling of a hand in his. It was nice.

 

\---

 

By the time Jehan came into the sitting room, barefoot and hastily braiding his hair over one shoulder, Grantaire was studying the papers strewn across the coffee table.

 

The spread was highly varied, from takeout menus to expensive-looking stationary to torn pages of lined notebook paper. Each one, however, had words scribbled in the margins or across lines in narrow, looping handwriting that was cramped and difficult to read.

 

Grantaire had just been deciphering one when Jehan had come in. As far as he could make out, it read:

 

_I travel far cocooned at night,_

_To worlds of fire and lands of blight._

_I bathe my self in radioactive light,_

_And wake with eyes sealed painfully tight._

Grantaire held up the sheet of yellow legal paper. “Did you write this?”

 

Jehan nodded distractedly, searching through the notebooks piled on one end of the kitchen table.

 

“I didn’t realize you were a poet,” Grantaire mused.

 

“Should’ve,” Jehan muttered distractedly. “You saw me write one at the meeting.” Jehan glanced up and cringed to see what paper Grantaire was holding.

 

“Oh god, don’t read that. Here,” he searched for a minute before triumphantly coming up with a small, velvet-bound notebook. He threw it to Grantaire before slinging a bag over his own shoulder. “Now, I hate to be a poor host, but I have a class in fifteen minutes and I need to get going. I don’t mind if you stay for a while, but if you leave, please lock the door behind you.” Grantaire nodded, bemused, as Jehan made for the door. As it was closing behind him, he called back, “Oh! And help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”

 

Grantaire hummed to himself, turning the notebook over in his hands. On a whim, he opened to a page at random and read the first thing he found there. The handwriting was slightly neater than that of the loose poems.

_A dream of hardship lends itself_

_To a premature opening of eyes._

_A dark world is nearly indistinguishable from an unreal one,_

_As I have discovered alone in my bed many times._

_It would be easy to drown oneself,_

_To overload the senses and forget, forget, forget,_

_But to close one's eyes once more would be to risk inviting in the dark._

Grantaire shuddered. The pounding behind his eyes reminded him _easy indeed_.

 

He hastily turned the page, letting himself breathe before reading the next poem.

 

_Sometimes I dream of great love and comfort,_

_Of hands to hold and gentle eyes._

_Those dreams I treasure in their fragile unreality,_

_For they are the most dangerous to fall prey to_

_And the least likely to come true._

 

He had to read it twice. He remembered the phantom pressure of a hand in his, of the feeling of something heavy in his chest as he held his breath, waiting for those hard blue eyes to skate over the corner where he had sat. He snapped the notebook shut. Jehan was a great poet indeed, but it was hitting just a little too close to home at the moment.

 

He started to take out his phone to text Jehan that he was leaving, before remembering that it had died the night before. He scribbled a note instead, wondering where he could leave it in the cluttered apartment that Jehan would find it. Eventually he settled for attaching it to the refrigerator with a fruit-bowl-shaped magnet. Then he left.

 

\---

 

Around noon, Grantaire remembered to plug his phone in to charge. Turning it on, he realized that he had a new message. He listened, tethered uncomfortably close to the wall by the charger’s cord.

 

It was Courfeyrac. Grantaire vaguely remembered being coerced into giving out his phone number the night before, as his phone was already dead by that point.

 

Grantaire called him back, sliding down to sit more comfortably by the outlet.

 

“Hey!” Courfeyrac said the moment he picked up.

 

“Uh, hi,” Grantaire said, ever eloquent. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier, my phone died last night.”

 

“Oh,” Courfeyrac sounded strange. “Sorry.”

 

Grantaire frowned. “Is this a bad time?”

 

“No, no!” Grantaire could practically hear the grin in his voice. “No, I just wanted to ask you about, well, remember how I asked if you’d draw me sometime and you said yes?”

 

“Yeah?” Grantaire replied apprehensively.

 

“Well, I was kind of wondering if I could commission a portrait from you.”

 

That was unexpected. Courfeyrac, perhaps wanting to fill the silence, hastily went on, “You could name your price, honestly.”

 

Grantaire found his voice. “Are you sure? You’ve never even seen my work-”

 

“I have faith in you,” Courfeyrac said firmly. “And I’ve seen your sketches. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but no matter. Will you do it?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Grantaire said, bemused.

 

“Great!”

 

They set up when they would meet the next day, and Grantaire hung up. Huh. He hadn’t had a commission in a while. Not that he ever went very long without painting; it was just unusual for him to get paid for it. To that end, he should probably clean up the room he reserved for his studio, and maybe clean the rest of the apartment, while he was at it.

 

\---

 

“Hey! Hi! I brought Marius with me, I hope that’s okay.” Grantaire stood back to let Courfeyrac and Marius in before closing the door behind them. “Marius is a little lovesick,” Courfeyrac joked. “Don’t get too close; you might catch it.”

 

 _Too late_ , Grantaire thought grimly, before catching himself and carefully eliminating that idea. To distract himself, he held out a hand to this Marius. He had long, pale eyelashes and a gaunt, moony face.

 

“Grantaire. I don’t think I met you on Wednesday.” Marius, who had been in the process of shaking his hand, blanched.

 

“Oh my god, the meeting. I totally forgot.” He whirled on Courfeyrac who looked like he was enjoying himself far too much. “Why didn’t you _remind_ me, you bastard? I was _texting_ you!”

 

Courfeyrac laughed. “You were so smitten! I didn’t want to throw you up in front of Enjolras like that.”

 

Marius ran a hand through his hair ruefully. “Fair point.”

 

“Anyway,” Courfeyrac said chattily, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Let’s do this. Grantaire?”

 

Grantaire led the way into his repurposed studio space. He had long since resigned himself to sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the smaller of the two small bedrooms, preferring to reserve the master bedroom for painting, due to its North-facing windows.

 

It still wasn’t very organized.

 

As Courfeyrac and Grantaire talked poses and portrait size, Grantaire kept an eye on Marius. He was standing by the window, looking soulfully out at the street and the patch of sky that was visible. The light was cool, the sun currently dampened by clouds. It was such a different scene from the one in his dream two nights before that he wondered why it should remind him so powerfully of that.

 

 _Marius was there_ he realized with a jolt. _Not there by the window, not there with his hand in mine, but I remember him._

 

He hastily sat down, knees feeling a little weak, and motioned for Courfeyrac to take a seat on the sofa draped with crinkled, paint-stained sheets. Courfeyrac settled himself comfortably.

 

“I’m just going to do some sketches first,” Grantaire said.

 

“Can I talk?” Courfeyrac asked.

 

“Would I be able to stop you?”

 

Marius laughed and turned to face the other two, interested. After a brief time in which only the scritch of Grantaire’s pencil could be heard, Courfeyrac spoke casually.

 

“So, Grantaire. You’re fairly new to our merry band of brothers. Anything you’ve been really dying to know?”

 

Grantaire paused, wondering if he dared to asked. Finally, he decided to risk it. “How many ‘abbys are there among you? What can you all do?”

 

Courfeyrac and Marius glanced at each other. “Well, some of it’s not mine to tell,” Courfeyrac said reluctantly. “But I’m one. And so’re Bossuet and Jehan.”

 

“What does Bossuet do?” Grantaire asked, sketching quickly, trying to capture the expressions flitting across Courfeyrac’s face.

 

Marius laughed, stopping quickly when Courfeyrac glared at him. “Sorry,” Marius said contritely. “Bossuet sees the future in mirrors.”

 

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny about that?”

 

Marius snickered. “He put his hand through a mirror once. Said he saw something scary and reacted without thinking. Needed stitches. Anyway, he’s had terrible luck ever since, or so he claims.”

 

“So he’s superstitious as well as abnormal,” Grantaire said.

 

“Well, yes and no,” Courfeyrac said. “He really does have terrible luck, y’see.”

 

Grantaire nodded absently. “And I know about Jehan already. What about you? If you’re willing to say.”

 

Courfeyrac looked suddenly uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat, quickly stopping when Grantaire gave him a pointed looked. “Sorry, it’s just. Embarrassing.”

 

“You don’t have to-”

 

“No, I should tell you.” Courfeyrac played with the hem of his shirt. He looked wretched. “I’m an energy drainer.”

 

Grantaire couldn’t help but feel ignorant. “What does that mean?”

 

Marius, who was studying Courfeyrac closely, spoke up, “He automatically pulls energy from surrounding sources. We’ve all learned to bring our phone chargers wherever we go, because hanging out with him will drain the battery.”

 

Courfeyrac groaned and put his face in his hands. “It’s not just that,” he said, voice muffled. “I drain people, too. If I’m with a group, you’d barely notice it, but if I’m alone with someone for a while they’ll start to feel it.”

 

Grantaire nodded slowly. “So you’re like an extra-concentrated extrovert.”

 

“That’s a good way to put it,” Marius said, impressed.

 

Grantaire turned to Marius. “And you?”

 

“‘And me’ what?”

 

“Are you an ‘abby, too?”

 

“Oh, no. Not I.”

 

“So that’s it? Just Jehan, Bossuet, you, and me?”

 

“We-ell not exactly,” Courfeyrac confessed. “We’re not totally sure if what Combeferre can do is abnormal or just him being him. And there’s, uh, one other person.”

 

Grantaire nodded. “Enjolras.”

 

“What! No! I mean- he’s not- who told-?” Grantaire just gave Courfeyrac a sardonic look. The other’s face took on a guarded quality. “How much do you know?”

 

Granatire shrugged, finally going back to his neglected sketchbook. “Not much. Just that he _seems_ abnormal, and that he either doesn’t know he is, or is really private about it.”

 

“The latter,” Marius said firmly.

 

“Do you know what he can do?” Grantaire asked. “Not that I need to know, if you do,” he amended hastily.

 

Slowly, Marius shook his head. “Most of us suspect that he can do something, but only Courf and Ferre know for sure.”

 

“Ah.” _So I was right_.

 

“Why so much interest in Enjolras?” Courfeyrac teased.

 

Marius looked back and forth between them, curiously. “Am I missing something?”

 

“ _I’ll_ say! You shoulda _heard_ the way they argued at the meeting!” Courfeyrac said, throwing out an arm theatrically. Grantaire tsked, but Courfeyrac ignored him.

 

“What about?” asked Marius, riveted.

 

“Oh, the usual; truth, justice, and liberty. But _Grantaire_. He _held his own_. Against _Enjolras_. More than that; I thought our leader dearest was going cry at one point.”

 

“I think Jehan actually did cry,” Grantaire muttered, shamefaced.

 

Marius looked at him, amazed. “So this isn’t just Courfeyrac exaggerating as usual?”

 

Grantaire shrugged as Courfeyrac gave an indignant, “Hey!”

 

“I argued with him, yeah.”

 

“And you’re still alive?” Marius asked, wide-eyed.

 

“More or less.”

 

“Yeah, but _R_ ,” Grantaire registered the use of the nickname. “Tell him what you called Enjolras _after_.”

 

“I don’t-” Grantaire tried to think of an excuse. Alcohol was a good one, but the truth was, he was drunk enough often enough that he had been fairly lucid during that exchange. And he could remember clearly what he had said.

 

“Go on,” Marius said to Courfeyrac, eyes on Grantaire’s discomfort. “What did he call him?”

 

“‘ _A golden god’_ ,” Courfeyrac sighed. “‘Apollo in his chariot of the sun,’ wasn’t it, Grantaire?”

 

“Shut up,” Grantaire snapped.

 

Marius came over and clapped him on the shoulder. When Grantaire caught his eyes, the other man had an entirely-too-understanding look on his face.

 

Shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! So I made a dumb mistake while doing my laundry and ended up finishing this while waiting for it to dry. Cool story.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! Say hi to me on tumblr and check out the other writings I post there~ (quasi-birdpeople.tumblr.com)


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